


Aftereffects

by atlas (cissysullivan)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 14:02:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1133488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cissysullivan/pseuds/atlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I might turn this into a full length fic someday, but for now this is all there is going to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftereffects

It started shortly after they destroyed the spirit of Bloody Mary and, at first, it was subtle. Whenever they interviewed a girl with blonde hair, Sam would stare at her too long. Whenever they interviewed a girl with green eyes, Sam would keep his own riveted to hers, and, at first, Dean thought he was just doing his job, but, then, he started seeing Sam’s reactions after the fact and everything changed.

****_Miranda  
_ _Case:_ Ghost  
 _Location:_ North Carolina

It was scary to Sam how much the girl looked like Jess. To him, anyway.

She had green eyes, long wavy blond hair, and she wore a pink sweater with skinny blue jeans, an outfit that Sam remembered had been Jess’s favorite. In fact, when he first saw her, he thought she was Jess.

He asked her questions about her mother who had been murdered in their house. He went through all the motions, but what he really wanted to do was ask, “Who are you?”

He knew she wasn’t Jess and that she couldn’t be. He’d watched Jess die. He’d watched her be consumed by flames.

Still, that night, he lay in bed, shaking and crying silent, thinking about the girl, about everything that had happened to Jess, to everyone he cared about and he promised himself, he wouldn’t let anything happen to this girl. He wouldn’t let the ghost haunting her home kill her.

The next day he took her out for ice cream while Dean dealt with the spirit.

The day after that they were gone.

_**Elena  
** Case: _Werewolf  
 _Location:_ West Virginia

This girl looked almost like Jess as well, but there were only a few discrepancies. Her eyes were brown instead of green, she was shorter than Jess had been and she was fonder of high heels than Jess ever was. In fact, when she insisted on helping the two of them kill the werewolf that murdered her brother, she wore a pair of high heeled leather boots.

Dean kept making eyes at her, flirting with her. She flirted back, but she seemed more annoyed by his advances rather than into them.

They got into a fight the night before they killed the werewolf because of this.

"She’s not interested, Dean!" Sam said, spreading his arms, anger and pain etched into his features. "Just leave her alone!"

"Why, you want her?" he retorted.

Sam said nothing. He turned away. The agony in his eyes took over his entire face.

The argument stopped there.

_**Lia** **  
**Case:_ Wendigo  
 _Location:_ Minnesota

In almost every way, this girl didn’t look like Jess. She had dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and was a foot and four inches shorter than Sam. She could’ve been his little sister.

But her personality matched Jess’s exactly.

She smiled like Jess, she laughed like Jess, she even walked like her. Their voices sounded similar.

It was with this girl that Sam got the closest. He wanted to stay in Minnesota, wanted to stay with her, settle down with her, forget everything else and just wrap himself up in a false sense of security again. He slept with her and realized, though he’d just met her, he loved her. But he also realized he loved her for the wrong reasons and, if he stayed with her, she’d inevitably die.

She deserved neither.

He left once the wendigo was killed and gave her a kiss as a goodbye present.

"I’ll come back someday," he wanted to promise because he wanted to return to her, but he knew he never would, so he never did.

-

They were headed to New York for another case when Dean finally said as they were lying in a motel room, trying to fall asleep one night, “Why are you doing this to yourself?”

Sam’s eyes were closed, but his brows knitted together in an expression of confusion at his brother’s words. “Do what?”

"Get close to these girls and then leave them," Dean replied.

"Because if I stay, they’ll get hurt," Sam replied.

There was a short silence before Dean said, “They all remind you of Jess, don’t they.” It was a statement, not a question.

Sam said nothing.

"She wouldn’t want you to do this, you know," Dean added. "She wouldn’t want you to torture yourself. She’d want you to move on, be happy again, realize what happened to her wasn’t your fault."

"But it _is_ my fault,” he replied without thinking.

Now Dean was silent.

"I could say the same thing, you know, about mom."

Sam turned to his brother, propping himself up on his forearm to look at his brother in the dim light that shone through the thin curtains from the street outside.

"Yeah, but that really _isn’t_ your fault.”

"How do you know?" Dean retorted. "Maybe if I’d done something different, that thing wouldn’t have killed her and we wouldn’t be here right now."

"You were only four years old, you didn’t know any better."

"And you were on a trip with me. _You_ didn’t know any better either.”

"But I did!" Sam half-shouted. "I _knew_ there were things out there that could hurt her! I should’ve stayed with her!”

Now Dean was silent.

"Maybe her death was my fault," he finally said softly. "Maybe if I’d never come back, she wouldn’t have died."

"I don’t blame you," Sam said tiredly, flopping back onto the pillows.

"But you should," Dean replied.

Neither of them said anything else after that.

This wasn’t a problem that could be simply solved. Perhaps it was a problem that wouldn’t _ever_ be solved and, as Sam stared at the ceiling, images of Jess pinned there every time he blinked flashing across the back of his eyelids, he wondered if maybe moving on was overrated.

He didn’t deserve to find happiness again anyway.


End file.
